The acrostic is a weapon too infrequently deployed in politics. This letter from the Governor of California vetoes a bill sponsored by Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco assemblyman. Ammiano is a vociferous critic of Schwarzenegger: he recently shouted "You lie" (a la Joe Wilson) at him during a public meeting. The first letters of each main paragraph in this letter are being interpreted as Schwarzenegger's rejoinder. "My goodness. What a coincidence," said the governor's spokesman, on being asked about it.

October 30, 2009

In the mid-nineteenth century a Londoner called John Leighton published a scheme to divide London in a number of hexagonals, a plan aimed at preventing cab drivers from taking advantage of London's chaotic complexity to overcharge their passengers. This is as far as it got, obviously.

Like all successful politicians, Obama has a ruthless streak, and an acute sense that he is the most important person on the side. As the Reverend Wright and Tom Daschle will testify, he won't hesitate to dispense with a former ally if they've become too much of a drag on the brand, or - as even the ultra-loyalist David Plouffe makes clear in his new book on the campaign - pin the blame for a mishap firmly on his colleagues. Plouffe, telling the story of McCain's announcement of his vice-presidential choice, recalls how he and Gibbs put out a very critical statement about Palin immediately her nomination was announced:

Our statement immediately received an enormous amount of attention
because it went right at her experience. The press clearly sensed heat
and was eager to help drive the fight. Seeing the reaction, I began to
think perhaps we had misfired. Obama clearly thought so. He called me
from the air. "Listen, I just told this to Axelrod and [communications
director Robert] Gibbs," he began. "I understand the argument you guys
were trying to make. And maybe we should make it someday. But not
today. We shouldn't have put out the first part of that statement. I
want to put out another statement that simply welcomes her to the race,
and I'll call her and congratulate her when I land."

I didn't disagree but thought backtracking would only add to the sense
in the press that perhaps Palin was a brilliant game-changing pick that
had scrambled the race. Even the famously disciplined Obama campaign
can't get its story straight — this would be the blowback. "Look," I
told him, "simply say that you're adding your own personal voice, one
principal to another." He acknowledged that he understood and would
watch his words. "We'll send out a personal statement from you and
Biden," I said, "but it's important you not suggest we misfired on the
original statement. Don't throw the campaign under the bus."

But when he took a few questions from the press later that day, he
proceeded to drive the bus right over us. "I think that, you know,
campaigns start getting these hair triggers, and the statement that Joe
and I put out reflects our sentiments," he said. Great, I thought,
already imagining the heat we'd take on this.

Which gives me an excuse to quote from a Saul Bellow story:

It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it.

October 29, 2009

Endism never ends does it? Everyone loves predicting the end of things, whilst competing to see who can come up with the most shocking estimate of when that end will come. Slate's Daniel Gross provides a useful counter-weight to those predicting - with glee or panic - that the newspaper business will be defunct within fifteen years. It may be in decline, it may be readjusting its model, but it's not dead yet:

This is the new emerging model—cutting costs, raising prices. It may
still fail in the end. But we shouldn't act as if the online-only crowd
has it all figured out. Every month, several million Americans pay to
have newspapers and magazines delivered to their homes—a trick most
online publications have yet to pull off. In fact, in some regards,
print-online hybrids like newspapers and magazines have outperformed
online-only publications. The Web operations of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal aren't exactly slouches when it comes to selling online ads. And as poorly as the stock of the New York Times has performed over the past decade, most people would have preferred owning it to the stock of Salon.com, or TheStreet.com.

Joe Lieberman the former Democrat, now Independent Senator from Connecticut, has come out and said he will try and sabotage any healthcare bill that includes a public option. Nate Silver is baffled:

Would voting to filibuster the Democrats' health care bill (if it
contains a decent public option) endear Lieberman to his constituents?
No; Connecticutians favor the public option 64-31. Would
it make his path to re-election easier? No, because it would virtually
assure that Lieberman faces a vigorous and well-funded challenge from a
credible, capital-D Democrat, and polls show him losing such a match-up badly.

Would
it buy him more power in the Senate? No, because Democrats would have
every reason to strip him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security
Committee. Is Lieberman's stance intended to
placate the special interests in his state? Perhaps this is part of it
-- there are a lot of insurance companies in Connecticut -- but
Lieberman is generally not one of the more sold-out Senators... What Joe Lieberman wants, in all probability, is attention.

Silver may well be right on this last point and in fact I tend to think he is. But having discounted all these other reasons isn't it rather ungenerous not to at least conceive of the possibility that Lieberman is doing what we're always accusing those senators who are prisoners of the interests listed above of never doing - ie, acting on principle?

October 28, 2009

Claiming that the president was preying on the public's fear of
contracting a fatal disease last week when he declared the H1N1 virus a
national emergency, Republican leaders announced Wednesday that they
were officially endorsing the swine flu. "Thousands of
Americans—hardworking ordinary Americans like you and me—already have
H1N1," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said
during a press conference. "Now Obama wants to take that away from us.
Ask yourself: Do you want the federal government making these kinds of
health care decisions for you and your family?"

Yes, he shoots his mouth off. Yes, he's prone to boasting. Yes, his judgement can be erratic.

But is he as arrogant as Cheney? As uptight or aristocratic as Gore? As green as Quayle?

Most importantly: could he ever tell a lie? No, of course not. I mean, even if persuaded himself to do so, he's be crap at it; everything he thinks goes straight to his mouth without passing Go (or rather Stop). Joe's a let-it-all-hang-out kind of guy, for better or for worse - and I think, in this age of distrust, for better. He is innately honest. That quality - along with his often underestimated (though never by him), genuinely vast knowledge of the world and its governance - makes him one hundred times the man his critics are.

So please America - take those approval numbers back up. Give thanks for Joe.

October 27, 2009

David Brooks doesn't refer to directly to his paper's report on Maurice Greenberg but his column might be read as a commentary on it. He argues that the over-confidence which led to the crash is in danger of simply being transferred to Washington:

Every great action can be done in a spirit of humility or in a
spirit of overconfidence. Regulating pay in a spirit of humility would
mean rebalancing the power between shareholders and executives, without
getting government involved in micromanaging individual pay decisions.

But this is not a moment of humility. Treasury officials are now making
individual pay-package decisions across an array of different companies
— and they must have really big brains to understand the motivational
psychology of all those different people. The Federal Reserve,
meanwhile, has decided to police banks and veto pay deals that lead to
excessive risk. Those experts must have absolutely gigantic brains if
they can define excessive risk years before investments pay off.

This NYT report is a fascinating story for more than one reason. Maurice Greenberg, the man who built AIG into the biggest insurance group in the world over the course of 40 years, lost most of his fortune when the company nearly collapsed last year and had to be saved by the government (Greenberg had already been ousted from AIG, in 2005 and claims not to have been responsible for the company's troubles). He is now building a competitor to his old business - some call it "AIG 2" - that is threatening to siphon off AIG's business and talent:

“To me, it’s just going to be a matter of time before the valuation of
what he’s building is greater than the valuation of A.I.G.,” said
Andrew J. Barile, an insurance consultant in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

Greenberg, says the Times, has just received a boost from the Obama administration's decision to cap the pay of executives at companies the government bailed out; he will now find it easier to compete for the people he wants to cherry-pick from AIG. All of this may mean, of course, that AIG's recovery will be delayed or stunted and thus that taxpayers are less likely to get their money back.

This is fascinating from a kind of economics textbook perspective, because it illustrates the tough choices that policymakers face when they intervene in the private sector. Obama, Geithner and co. will have calculated that the political and economic benefits of capping pay outweigh this kind of counter-effect, but it's by no means a sure thing (as those calling loudly for government action on bankers' pay often seem to think).

It's a demonstration of the relentless, protean logic of capitalism, and of the ethical paradoxes it throws up: do we admire Greenberg for his entrepreneurial zeal, or decry his activities as an assault on the public interest?

It's also just a compelling personal story. The man is eighty-four. And he wants to build another empire from scratch.

It turns out that flipping a coin isn't necessarily an entirely fair way of making a choice:

Using a high-speed camera
that photographed people flipping coins, the three researchers
determined that a coin is more likely to land facing the same side on
which it started. If tails is facing up when the coin is perched on
your thumb, it is more likely to land tails up.

How much more
likely? At least 51 percent of the time, the researchers claim, and
possibly as much as 55 percent to 60 percent — depending on the
flipping motion of the individual.

October 26, 2009

It's often said of uncharismatic politicians who are reputed to be charming in private (John Major, Gordon Brown), that "if only they could meet every member of the electorate" they'd be unbeatable. The Mayor of Boston, Tom Menino, might be the closest real life example we've got. He is famously dull, but has held office for 20 years. His secret might have something to do with this:

A Boston Globe survey asked respondents if they had personally met their mayor. An astonishing 60 percent said yes.